On Ferry Thoughts

     On the dawn of my thirty-second birthday, I am so grateful. I sit here at a table, on an early morning ferry out of the San Juans, sipping hot coffee and watching a morning fog lift and stretch itself away from this chain of mystical wooded isles. I am currently in awe of the moments of my life that have brought me here. A life well-lived to the fullest, yet not even halfway over, I eagerly consider where I might be another thirty-two years from now. 

      Why has my thirty-second birthday become such a marker for me? Given me such pause in the string of birthdays before that? For most, the thirtieth birthday is the one to fear, the day that receives tears and anxious rumblings about how the twenties were wasted on youth, how our years of usefulness to society are dwindling away like grains of sand in some secret, hidden hourglass. But for me, this year’s celebration brings a marked time of change to my life; the end of relationships, the start of a new relationship with myself, the changing of careers, the renewed love-affair with the home-state I once knew. I am anxious of my decisions, fearing the fear of a misstep itself, but I am also lightened from shedding the burden of my life of expectations. Expectations for my career, for myself, for others. This new time has brought copious change and forced me to adapt or die, and with that, I embrace a new period of acceptance.

               In these moments, I am happy with the uncertainty of it all.